


Shifting Stories

by MalMuses



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Dean Winchester Needs to Use Actual Words, Dean Winchester is So Done, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Gabriel Ex Machina, Inspired by Changing Channels, Its all Gabriel's doing, M/M, Miscommunication, PB Exchange Fic, or kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 15:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18284696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalMuses/pseuds/MalMuses
Summary: Gabriel had seen a lot of pining in his time. Over the slow passing of millennia, he’d observed some of the world’s greatest love stories. Antony and Cleopatra. Orpheus and Eurydice. Mary and Joseph, not to toot his own horn. But these two… these two might be the death of him...Gabriel had only been in the bunker three days, but he was already totally done watching Dean and Cas dance around each other, awkwardly no-homoing their way through life.So, he came to a decision.He was going to make them fake it.  He might have been a little low on grace, but pocket dimensions and reality manipulation? Child's play, for him! Time for some new roles for Dean and Cas, in their very own fairytales."Changing Channels" but with fairytales. Or, when Gabriel gets fed up and forces the hunter and the angel to play at getting together... repeatedly.





	Shifting Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turningthepages](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turningthepages/gifts).



> A PB Exchange: Fairytale fic for [turningthepages](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turningthepages/pseuds/turningthepages).
> 
> Many thanks to [cutelittlekitty.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutelittlekitty) <3
> 
> Kindly betad by [rocksalt&honey.](https://rocksaltandhoney.tumblr.com/)

 

**A version of Changing Channels, with Fairy Tales.**

**Once Upon a Time in the Bunker...**

 

Gabriel had seen a lot of pining in his time. Over the slow passing of millennia, he’d observed some of the world’s greatest love stories. Antony and Cleopatra. Orpheus and Eurydice. Mary and Joseph, not to toot his own horn. But these two… these two might be the death of him.

The heavy, iron bunker door creaked slowly open above the war room, where Gabriel somewhat reluctantly sat with Sam and Dean. They flicked through dull tomes on his stupid brothers, alternate universes, portals, and Nephilim. It was boring as all heck, but it beat watching Dean stare at the door to see when Castiel would return.

As soon as the door began creaking, Dean’s ears perked up like a lost puppy hearing its master's voice.

Maybe this time, Gabriel hoped, one of them would say something.

“Cas.”

“Dean.”

They stared; mouths opened, mouths closed. Eventually their eyes dropped, and they walked past each other.

 _Holy damn raspberries_ , Gabriel thought. _How has Sam put up with this for years? Three days, and I want to rope them together until they make words like big boys._

Actually… nah.

He nixed that idea, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have others. He might have been low on juice… but some things were just second nature to the Trickster.

 

***

 

Dean woke up suddenly.

Far, far too suddenly, given how empty and quiet his room was. Hunter instincts kicking in immediately, he had his hand on the gun from his nightstand in the same motion that put his feet on the floor. He moved slowly toward the closed door. Resting one hand on the door handle, he took stock; everything was quiet. Too quiet. The air though… something felt off. Wrong. Magical.

Ugh. Magical.

Nothing that could be described that way was ever good.

He eased open the door and carefully stuck his head out into the corridor…which... was not beyond. What the hell?

He yanked his head back into the bedroom. Everything looked normal.

So, he tried again… and again.

Out beyond his bedroom door, instead of the familiar, tiled corridor that linked all of the bunker’s sleeping quarters, there was…well, a ballroom.

A freaking ballroom.

Ugh. Probably a witch, with the heavy magic feeling in the air.

He stepped out into the shimmering, faintly candy-scented air. Almost immediately, his soft sweatpants and loose Led Zeppelin shirt that he’d fallen asleep in felt oddly tight. Looking down, Dean realized that he was now wearing a suit. A pretty snazzy suit at that,  if he said so himself. It was beautifully tailored, a full blue tuxedo with a matching boutonniere and shiny, leather shoes. He stared, taking in the luxurious fabric that flattered his figure, and reached down to lift the leg of his pants up slightly. Sockettes, showing his ankle. Just how he liked it.

“Alright,” he said to himself, low under his breath. “A really fashionable witch. Still, you’re not forgiven, Bellatrix. Lemme atcha.”

With his gun still in hand, Dean made his way very carefully into the ballroom.

Behind him, the bedroom door clicked shut… and disappeared. Shit.

Ballroom it was.

It was huge, like something from a Disney movie, and full of people. Frozen people.

He was up on a slightly elevated balcony, Dean realized, and down below there was an entire cast of characters that were completely immobile. They were all dressed to the nines in intricate, fantastical ball gowns and a variety of handsome suits in every color of the rainbow.  Mid-twirl on the dancefloor, they were frozen.

Making his way down the steps, Dean tried not to focus on the deeply satisfying way that his shoes were sinking into the plush, red carpet and to instead take in a bit more of his surroundings.

Lights twinkled from every available surface, the walls like waterfalls and the roof like stars. The centerpiece of the back wall was a beautiful, golden clock; frozen at exactly nine on the hour. Cascading drapes of a deep, wine red lined huge floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over some kind of endless, snow-capped forest.

“Where the hell am I?” Dean asked himself, quietly.

Seeing no immediate threat, he slipped his handgun into his waistband, tucking it out of sight beneath his suit jacket, and made his way out to the dancefloor.

He was experimentally poking at a frozen, female dancer in ridiculously high heels when he heard the first sound since whatever had woken him.

“Dean?”

It was Cas. And he sounded very confused.

“Hey, Cas! Over here!” Dean called, unable to pick out the angel immediately amongst all the immobile dancers.

“Dean!” Cas sounded incredibly relieved as he arrived at Deans side, ducking under the raised arm of a statue-still dancer who was acrobatically spinning his partner.

“Gotta say, buddy, it’s good to see you,” Dean greeted him, slapping Cas on the shoulder firmly. “Any idea what the hell is going on?”

Castiel responded with a firm, displeased squint. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t appear to be malicious. It feels like a pocket dimension, though why that would be I have no idea. This whole thing seems very frivolous… and these shoes are incredibly uncomfortable.”

Blinking, Dean took in Castiel’s attire; his blue suit complimenting Dean’s own perfectly. But the shoes, those were most definitely different. They appeared to be a handsome pair of men’s brogues… made entirely from glass.

_Holy shit._

“Cinderella,” Dean whispered, helplessly.

Cas squinted at him. “Excuse me?”

“We—we’re in Cinderella, Cas.”

The angel stared at Dean like he’d grown an extra head or sprouted wings of his own. “I beg your pardon?”

“We,” Dean said, pointedly flailing at the dancers, the ballroom, and the shoes, “are in freakin’ Cinderella.”

Cas’s mouth opened, then closed. “Huh.”

“’Huh’? That’s all you’ve got to say, Cas? ‘Huh’?”’

“Well what am I supposed to say?” Castiel snapped. “I don’t know why we’re in Cinderella, or how we got here, so simply knowing that fact is actually far from helpful, Dean.”

Dean opened his mouth to retort, but he was interrupted by a booming voice from overhead.

_“And the young, virginal Cinderella, pretty and lithe, met the beautiful prince out on the ballroom floor—”_

Dean and Castiel both groaned out loud, in perfect unison. They knew that voice.

“Gabriel,” they said, together.

“Alright, dickwad,” Dean yelled up at the ceiling. “We know it’s you! You can let us out now!”

Nothing. Just silence, and the stares of creepily immobile dancers.

Castiel sighed. “I fear we might have to do what he wants in order to get out, Dean.”

“You can’t just zap us out?” Dean asked hopefully.

“It’s been many years since I’ve been able to zap anyone anywhere, Dean,” Castiel reminded him quietly. He sounded bitter, but now wasn’t really the time.

Dean reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose as he frowned. “I’m going to punch him in the face, Cas.”

“Yes, Dean.”

“Shank him in the wing.”

“Of course.”

“Kick him in the throat. Speaking of—why’d he stop speaking?”

Castiel looked thoughtful for a moment, his eyes skimming once more around their ornate setting. “I think perhaps he wasn’t speaking to us, directly. Rather… narrating.”

“Narrating?”

Blue eyes settled on Dean as Castiel tilted his head to one side. “When Gabriel trapped you and Sam in those pocket dimensions years ago, you had to act your way out, through the TV shows.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. That’s right. We had to play along with the script, until the channel changed. Then we got a new one, and eventually could get out if we did as he wanted.”

“So—” Castiel gestured around. “—the same. But… with fairytales, perhaps.”

“But why? Last time he was trying to teach me and Sam a lesson, what the hell is this about?”

Castiel squinted firmly around into mid air. “I would suppose he wants to teach the two of us something, this time.”

Rolling his eyes, Dean directed his ire back toward the twinkling ceiling. “Alright asshole, we’ll play along. What’s the deal?”

They waited, in the silent ballroom, slowly looking around.

“Cas!” Dean reached out and grabbed ahold of his friend’s arm, determinedly not dwelling on how he could feel the swell of the angel's muscles so much more clearly without the trench coat in the way. “Look!”

He pointed up at the large golden clock that overlooked the dance floor. One minute past nine.

“It moved,” said Cas, nodding as he followed Dean’s arm. “Alright then, so perhaps as in fairytales, this all ends at midnight.”

Dean bobbed his head along with the angel's hypothesis. “Yeah, I’m following that. Alrighty, so what made it move? And how do we get it to move…y’know…a bit faster?”

“I’m uncertain,” Castiel admitted, turning back to Dean. “All we’ve done is talk and work out, between the two of us, what’s happening.”

As if on cue, narrator Gabriel piped up again.

_“And the young, virginal Cinderella, pretty and lithe, met the beautiful prince out on the ballroom floor—”_

“Gabriel!” It was Castiel yelling at the ceiling that time. “Cinderella and the beautiful prince, very pretty, in a ballroom, we get it!” he snapped. “But what are we supposed to DO!”

_“And the young, virginal Cinderella, pretty and lithe, met the beautiful prince out on the ballroom floor—”_

“Assbutt,” Cas muttered under his breath.

“You’re telling me,” Dean grumbled. “You’re not the one he’s describing like a Disney character.”

Castiel raised an eyebrow. “So, you’d rather be the virginal Cinderella?”

“Shut up.” Dean sighed and shook his head. “Alright. Clearly, we gotta play along and hope the narrator gives us new instructions. So… how’s your dancing, bud?”

Castiel looked like he was having a panic attack.

“Woah, Cas, breathe—” Dean reached out and gripped him by the biceps. “—I know I’m not exactly formally trained, but I probably won’t step on your feet _that_ much, Jesus.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Castiel managed to say, smiling weakly. “I have never danced before, but I shouldn’t imagine it’s too difficult.”

Dean nodded encouragingly. While dancing wouldn’t have been his first choice, if all they had to do to get out of here was play at Disney princess for a bit, it could’ve been worse. It might be quite nice, even, he’d admit to no one at all, to have an excuse to spend time so close to the angel.

It would have worked out a lot better, of course, if they hadn’t both tried to lead.

Nervously, they both assumed a very formal, archaic dancing position; each trying to hit all the points that made them technically “dancing” while touching each other as little as possible. It didn’t work very well, particularly not as they wanted to go in different directions and neither wanted to be the one to step backwards.

After a few glares, foot stomps and awkward starts, Castiel let go of Dean’s hand—which was getting a little sweaty already—and stopped.

“The clock isn’t even moving,” he said his eyes firmly on the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m bad at this.”

Dean exhaled slowly. He couldn’t look at Castiel either, so the two gazed around the room, pointedly not staring, for once. “Look,” he began after a moment, “it’s—it’s okay. Maybe we just need to, y’know, fully commit. When we were in the TV shows, we couldn’t just walk through the scene, we had to say the lines and everything.”

“Commit?” Castiel’s voice didn’t seem quite as low as usual, and when Dean chanced a look up at him, he looked rather… flustered. “Yes. I suppose you’re right. Let’s, uh, let’s try again.”

They shuffled nearer to each other, and Dean reached for Castiel’s waist tentatively, pulling him a little closer. “Let me lead?” he asked, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

It was the twenty-first frickin’ century, after all. If two totally platonic dudes wanted to totally platonically slow dance, bros could do that. Right?

The closer they got, the more they relaxed, somehow. After a minute, Dean had his palm resting on the small of Castiel’s back, and they were lightly pressed together. Cas’s hand rested casually on Dean’s shoulder, their other hands held gently as they swayed together. By some miracle, they almost had a rhythm going.

“Look,” Dean near-whispered, as if he didn’t want to break the good thing they momentarily had working. “Look the clock.”

Castiel’s eyes tracked across to it, high up on the wall. Slowly, sluggishly, the second hand began to tick.  A small smile tugged at the angel’s plump lips. “So, we were right. But it’s still moving very slowly, not at normal speed. And everyone is still frozen. Are we missing something?”

As if he’d been waiting for the question—of course he’d been waiting for the question—the Narrator piped up again.

_“Cinderella and the prince danced all night. Conversation flowed freely as they twirled, and they barely noticed the passage of time.”_

“Oh, come on,” Dean said, though by this point it was more resigned than annoyed. “He wants us to chatter the damn night away in each other’s arms? What the hell?”

Castiel’s cheeks burned red on his vessel, and Dean felt a twinge of pity for him. As awkward as this was for him, it was probably ten times worse for Cas, who hadn’t exactly had the length and breadth of human interaction that Dean had in his four decades, despite being alive so much longer.

“Hey,” Dean soothed, catching Castiel’s eyes as they continued to sway to-and-fro. “It could be worse, right? At least it's you. I like talking to you.”

Something in Dean’s chest tightened as he realized that Castiel looked genuinely surprised.

“You do?”

“Of course I do, man, what kind of question is that?!” Dean frowned. “I know I’m not always—I mean, particularly recently I haven’t been the most—”

Castiel raised an eyebrow as Dean cut himself off repeatedly, but they kept slowly dancing.

“Sorry, Cas,” Dean said after a minute. “I’m not much of a talker, sometimes. It’s just easier not to, y’know?”

Castiel nodded slowly. “I understand.”

After another few minutes of increasingly-less-awkward dancing, Castiel turned his eyes back to the clock thoughtfully. They rested there for a moment, before coming back to Dean.

“Tell me a story,” he said.

Dean blinked, and almost stepped on Castiel’s foot.

“Whoops—uh, sorry. A story? Like a bedtime story or some shit? Aren’t you a bit old?”

“No.” Cas glared pointedly. “A story about you. Something I don’t know about you.”

“Oh—oh. Right.” Dean smiled slightly uncomfortably, seeing what Cas was doing. “Okay. Hmm.”

He thought about it for a moment, while he took a chance on swaying Castiel slightly more to the left, managing to execute some kind of half-decent turn. _See,_ he thought to himself. _You can totally platonically do this._

“Did I ever tell you about the time Sam and me found a lucky rabbit's foot, and I won the lottery?”

Castiel’s head tilted quizzically. “No offense Dean, but you’re remarkably poor for a lottery winner.”

Dean couldn’t help it, he laughed, leaning forward slightly, their chests coming together in a way that was almost comfortable. “Well, that’s part of the story, see…”

They talked.

Once Dean had told a story, he urged Castiel into telling one, finally explaining what on Earth was funny about his long-ago Enochian goat joke.

“Wait a damn minute—that was a sex joke? It’s like saying someone has a dirty mouth when they—” Dean blinked. “My whole world view just changed.”

Castiel laughed, low and dark, the chuckle reverberating through Dean’s ribcage, which was somehow a lot more pressed against Cas than it had been. “Why is that such a surprise? I’m perfectly aware of how sex works, as are all the other angels. In fact, watching you lot go at it was our biggest entertainment for eons.”

Well, that was just too much. Laughing in turn, Dean almost missed Castiel’s wide eyes, until he squeezed suddenly at Dean’s shoulder.

“Dean! Look!”

Around them, people were moving. Softly, as if slowly building like a performance orchestra, a gentle waltz began to play, cascading around them from the glowing, star-like ceiling of the stunning ballroom.

Everything around them was unfrozen; the room was alive, softly glowing with light, filled with musical notes, soft laughter, and romance.

They looked at each other, breaths held, before chancing a look at the clock.

It ticked, second by second.

“That’s more like it,” Dean said under his breath, turning back to grin at Castiel.

And so, they continued talking. They talked more than they had in years, spinning around the dancefloor, ever closer. At some point, Castiel’s head lolled down onto Dean’s shoulder as they slow danced, and Dean’s cheek came to rest on top of his thick, dark hair, as Castiel spoke of his brothers in heaven; who reported to who, who was the worst, and which ones he’d liked best, and missed most.

The clock spun on, and Dean found himself talking about Sam, and how he’d always felt like he had to be his Dad just as much as his brother, how he’d always felt he had to be what John would have been. Now, so much older, he realized that he’d never be his Dad, and if anything, he was grateful for it.

Dean wasn’t sure why he was saying it, other than it felt good to finally do so. Not that he’d have ever admitted it. He came to the conclusion, in the end, as they danced, that the ballroom must have some kind of spell upon it, to loosen up his tongue. But with Cas there to talk to, he didn’t mind.

They both jumped when the clock struck twelve.

“Dean,” Castiel said, smiling almost shyly as he lifted his head and straightened up, looking self-conscious. “I don’t know what Gabriel is playing at, but honestly, this was—”

As the clock finished chiming, everything went black.

 

***

 

“This was—what?” Dean was suddenly saying to himself, in the dark. _“_ Cas?”

There was no response.

“Gabriel?” Dean yelled. “Turn the lights back on, you douche!”

Obediently, illumination began to filter in around the edges of Deans vision, and he felt himself tensing, weighed down by something.

_What the hell?_

The ballroom was gone, and he appeared to be standing at the end of a pathway at the edge of a dark, thorny wooded area.

“Cas?” Dean called again, before looking down to take in his change of attire.

Well, this was pretty cool. The handsome blue suit was gone, and instead heavy chainmail sat against Dean’s shoulders, covering him from his arms to knees, overtop of thick, leather breeches. A white tabard bearing a red lion flapped over the top of it. From his belt hung a weighty sword, and his head was protected with an iron helmet, complete with nose guard. It was like LARPing, but a heck of a lot heavier.

“Hell yeah,” Dean said to himself, grinning as he flexed his fingers within his armored gloves. “If these ended up in my room, Gabe, I wouldn’t complain.”

 _“For crying out loud —”_ There was a swift cough as the narrator remembered himself. _“The brave knight knew that it would be grueling, exhausting work to make his way through the dark forest maze that separated him from his slumbering prince…”_

“Oh suck my dick, you fucking asshole.”

Shaking his head, Dean sighed. They’d wasted a lot of time in the last fairy tale not complying, and who knew what that winged bastard had done to Cas. So, he might as well get on with it. Reaching down to his belt, he slid his sword from its sheath with a satisfying _zing!_

“Sweet,” he whispered quietly to himself.

_“The brave knight knew that it would be grueling—”_

“Alright, alright! I’m moving, Jesus.”

Dean eyed the edge of the forest, ahead of him. It wasn’t quite a forest, as such, now that he looked closer. It appeared to be a thick maze of vines the size of tree trunks, with vicious spines that looked set to barb their way into any piece of flesh that Dean dared expose, should he make a misstep or go the wrong way on the path. And the path looked twisty, and disorienting—deliberately so.

“Well, fuck that,” Dean muttered.

Bending over near the side of the dirt pathway, he began to dig through the leaf litter and detritus on the floor.

_“The brave knight knew that—”_

“Shut up!” Dean yelled, without even looking up.

Dean thought he heard a distant “hrmphf” sound but decided not to mention it. Instead he focused on gathering a stout branch, a handful of dried grass and leaves, and a sharp rock. Squatting down on the floor, Dean ripped a strip from the tabard over his chainmail and began to tie it around the end of the branch. Satisfied, he balled the grasses into a pile, angled his sword toward them, and began to smack sparks off the blade with the stone. It took a minute, but with patience, the dried weeds ignited. Holding the wrapped end of the branch into the flame, he held his breath until it took.

“Voila,” he muttered to himself proudly. “One torch. No wandering in the dark for this guy.”

More confident, Dean strode off into the forest, torch in one hand, sword in another. It only took a few minutes for him to get fed up of slashing at the vines with his weapon.

“Fuck that,” he said again, echoing his earlier sentiment.

He craned his head, squinting at the skyline for some sense of direction. Far away, beyond the trees, he could make out the shape of some stone towers. _Bingo, one castle._

Orienting himself so that the castle would be straight in front of him, Dean raised his torch and experimentally held it up to one of the vines.

They were too live and damp to go up in flames easily, but they burned. It wasn’t quick, but it was sure easy, and Dean stood back and watched as the fire took hold of the vines, smoldering its way through them and clearing a path ahead.

 _“Hey!”_ The Narrator barked in annoyance. _“I SAID, the brave knight—”_

“I can’t hear you,” Dean trilled, smirking to himself. He began to sing _Smoke on the Water_ as loud as he could, plodding his way proudly through the rapidly clearing forest. Deforestation wasn’t much of a concern in a fake pocket-dimension, and he also had a sneaking suspicion that Gabriel wouldn’t really let him, or Cas, come to any harm here. So, he traipsed on after the flames.

The narrator was sulkily silent when Dean reached the castle, so Dean waited.

After a minute, he cleared his throat.

There was a sigh.

_“Fine. Upon finally reaching the castle, the handsome knight dashed onward, to wake the sleeping prince that awaited him within and claim his reward.”_

“Too right I’m handsome,” Dean muttered, slipping his sword back into its sheath and starting over the drawbridge.

The castle itself wasn’t large, and it didn’t take Dean long to find Castiel in one of the interior chambers.

He lay on an ornate bed with red velvet drapes, dressed in a simple white tunic of some kind. Heavy bedding covered him up to his waist, and he lay perfectly still on his back, eyes closed.

_Goddamnit, Gabriel._

Dean knew exactly which fairy tale this was; of course he did. One look around the rest of the stone room revealed the necessary spinning wheel to complete the fable.

Well. Dean would soon show him.

Marching out of the room, Dean turned down the hallway a couple of rooms back, to what had once been a kitchen of some kind. A quick rattle around located him a wooden bucket. Carrying it with him, Dean made his way to the central courtyard of the castle, where an ornate fountain trickled, and filled up the bucket before he lugged it back up the stairs to Sleeping Beauty’s bedroom with him.

Standing at the edge of the bed, Dean looked down at his best friend and sighed. “Sorry, Cas.”

With a small grunt, he hoisted the bucket and tipped it over the angel’s head.

“Shit,” Dean said, as Cas’s eyelids didn’t even flutter.

Pursing his lips, Dean looked around for inspiration. Seeing nothing much to help, he let out a long sigh and stepped up to the edge of the bed once more.

“Heya, Cas,” he said quietly. “Not sure if you can hear me, but, uh… sorry, if you can.”

Winding back his arm, he bitch-slapped the angel right around the face.

“SHIT!” Dean let out loudly, clutching his hand to his chest immediately and squeezing his eyes shut in agony. “Forgot about that, holy crap.”

Cas hadn’t even flinched. Maybe if he rolled him out of the bed and down the stairs—

 _“Dean,”_ came the Narrator, not even trying to disguise his voice now. _“Are you planning on no homo-ing him to death?”_

Dean didn’t even bother to respond, storming out of the room to explore the castle for further inspiration.

He searched far longer than was practical, a tiny thread of desperation somehow preventing him from heading back into Sleeping Beauty’s bedchamber. But, after he’d overturned every other room, he had no choice.

Stepping back inside, he kicked the spinning wheel over for good measure, sending cracked wood crashing across the floor.

Moving up to the edge of the bed once more, Dean signed and looked down.

“Let’s get you out of here, Cas. You might want to have a word with your brother about, oh I dunno, fucking _consent_ and shit, when we’re done.”

He glared up at the ceiling and took a deep breath.

“Son of a bitch.”

Dean took a moment to calm the thundering of his heartbeat. He couldn’t say, even to himself, that he didn’t want to do this. But, even in his most perverted daydreams of this moment, Cas was awake. Somnophilia just wasn’t his kink. But hey, if Cas’d be into it, he could sure try— _Woah, okay, Dean. Back on track._

Moistening his lips nervously, Dean leaned over the bed, and got on with it.

Castiel’s lips were dry and chapped, the wetness of Dean’s own making them gently pliant as he pressed softly, cautiously into them. Through his half-closed eyes, Dean saw a flash of blue go wide and panicked, but then settle, fluttering.

And then Castiel’s fingers were tangled in Dean’s hair, and his breath was catching on Dean’s tongue, and—

And the room was black, again.

 

***

 

They were on a bridge. A pretty, gothic styled bridge of grey stone that covered some kind of ravine. Dean could smell fresh baked bread floating on the breeze, along with something like burning coal, or embers. He was still wearing his armor, and they were most definitely not in the bunker.

Castiel stood next to him, and they looked at each other, blinking, mouths still open.

Dean felt his cheeks begin to burn, the temperature spreading around his jaw and up to the tips of his ears.

“Cas,” he began nervously, choking past his silence because he simply had to. “I’m so—”

The rest of Dean’s sentence was lost to roaring, as it suddenly became clear where the smoky, burning smell was coming from.

A veritable mob of people, men, women, even some teenagers, besieged the bridge from one end. They were dressed in simple peasant garb, as befit a fairytale cliché, and were waving burning torches and pitchforks.

“There he is! The beast! Kill the beast!”

“Dean!” Castiel suddenly yelled, reaching out to grab at Dean’s wrist and drag him along the bridge with him as he ran at full pelt. “I think I know what fairytale this is!”

Dean’s thighs burned as he tore across the stone alongside Cas, no idea where they were running other than _away._ The bridge led onto a drawbridge and into another castle, of course.

 _Thank you, but our princess is in another castle,_ Dean couldn’t help but think as Cas shoved him roughly ahead of himself, heaving shut the heavy wooden door that, even as it closed, the mob was throwing themselves against.

Dean helped him pull down the thick beam that was on an iron pivot next to the door, locking it into place across the oak. Both of them stopped with their backs to the door for just a moment, breathing.

“Beauty and the Beast?” Dean asked, breathless.

“Seems so,” Castiel said dryly.

“Well, come on then, Beauty,” Dean couldn’t help but wink across at Cas. “If memory serves, we have a tower to find, or a singing teapot, or something.”

If Dean noticed Castiel’s ears redden a little, he didn’t want to point it out and embarrass him.

They hurried through the corridors side by side, peeking into various rooms without much luck. No dancing silverware or armoires with bass voices busted out to greet them; there were no cute-as-fuck little teacups with chips in their edges or kinky-looking broom maids. Just dust and emptiness.

Dean grew more and more uneasy as he heard the front door begin to splinter.

This may have been a pocket dimension, but as he’d discovered when he smacked Cas around the face, pain here felt _very, very_ real. He didn’t fancy being lynched, or burned, or whatever they did to the Beast in the non-Disney version. Or was this the Disney version? Did Disney count? Were they going to have to waltz again?

Dean thought he might be rather okay with that, all things considered.

Castiel was frowning heavily though, as the door at the end of the hall began to shake and crash. Reaching out for Dean’s arm once more, he hauled him to the furthest archway at the far side of the castle.

“Up here,” he said roughly, pulling Dean behind him up a narrow, twisting stone stairway. “It must be the tower. There are no other options.”

“What are you looking for?” Dean panted, fairly fit but not quite able to keep up with angel stamina in any dimension; and this armor was fuckin’ _heavy,_ damn.  He wracked his brain, trying to remember the fairytale.

Most of Dean’s knowledge of fairytales came from the bad side; learning which ones were actually true. And those ones were rarely the cutesy, romantic kind that Gabriel seemed to be going for, the little shit.

 _I’m going to put every piece of candy in the bunker on the highest fucking shelf,_ Dean thought viciously.

Alright, so he technically had Gabriel to thank for three hours dancing with Cas that, once they’d finally gotten over themselves, had actually been fairly awesome.  And maybe he finally knew how Castiel’s lips felt, something he’d been wondering for years. But he wasn’t ready to thank the pint-sized terror just yet.

 _What the fuck happened in Beauty and the Beast?_ Dean desperately thought. His mind was overwhelmed by waltzing tableware and he couldn’t recall much else.

They’d reached the top of the tower before Castiel responded. “The rose,” he said, very quietly.

“Rose?” Dean frowned. “You’re gonna have to help me out dude, I don’t remember this one.”

Castiel winced, visibly.

The top of the tower opened up into a single room with a balcony that looked out over the castle and the bridge below. The space seemed to have been jammed with all kinds of odd junk, dusty sheets covering everything, creating lumpy furniture ghosts that haunted the room with reminders of the lives that must have once been lived here.

In the middle of the room, directly in front of the archway that led onto the small balcony, there was a tiny round table; the kind of thing that some snooty salesman would call an “occasional table” and charge some decorative price for. It was only big enough to hold one thing. On top of it sat a large glass cloche and suspended within was a single red rose.

Or, what had been a rose.

The stem was green and lush, but only a single petal still hung from the top.

Castiel stared at it, wide-eyed.

Below, a thundering crack announced the death of the front door.

“Cas?” Dean asked desperately.

The angel moistened his lips, but no words came.

The sound of running feet, roaring curses, and clanging pitchforks echoed from the stairwell.

Dean looked up, skyward. “Gabriel! Our damn Narrator has been a bit _suspiciously quiet,_ don’tcha think?!

 _“Your Narrator thinks you need to work at least_ some _of this shit out for yourself,”_ the voice in the sky snapped.

“In the story,” Castiel croaked, to a background of the mob rattling below, “the Beauty must tell the Beast of their true worth to them before the last petal falls, or the Beast—”

Metal rang out against stone as the mob began to pour onto the stairs, echoing chants of “Kill the Beast! Kill the Beast!” getting louder and louder. Castiel’s eyes flickered over to the arched doorway.

Dean was sweating, not much enjoying the thought of being skewered with a farming implement. “Cas! Please!”

As they stood next to the tiny table, the final petal of the rose trembled, and took a drifting leap toward the ground.

“NO!” Cas launched himself at Dean, his hands grasping at either side of Dean’s face as he dragged their eyes together, babbling.

“I love you, Dean. I’ve been in love with you since the very moment we met, I just had no idea what any of it meant until I fell, and I never wanted you to find out because I’m not _worthy_ of being allowed to love you, but now Gabriel—”

As the rose petal touched the table top, everything went white.

 

***

 

Waking up, suddenly back in his own bed, was quite surreal to Dean.

The soft, sleep warmed sheets that covered his familiar, memory foam mattress felt quite different to the heavy chainmail he’d been wearing only seconds before. Laying on his back, the pillow rolled awkwardly behind his neck, Dean could have sworn he still felt the ghosts of Castiel’s hands on his cheeks.

Lifting his hand to touch his fingers to the stubble of his own face, Dean frowned sleepily into the bunker’s chill air.

“Gabriel?” he said, experimentally.

There was no answer, but that didn’t really mean much, Dean decided.

That was… the strangest, and most intense dream that Dean had dreamed in a very long time.

Pushing up onto his elbows, Dean blinked blearily, and slowly spun himself to the side to place his feet on the cold tile. It was a grounding, not altogether unpleasant feeling, and so he sat there a moment, getting his bearings.

It felt real.

_Just a dream._

But it felt so real.

Shit, he wanted it to be real. He wanted it to be real so very badly.

Dean scrubbed the heels of his hands across his eyes and sighed. An Angel of the Lord, a freaking _awesome_ one like Castiel nonetheless… Dean would never be worthy of that.

And yet, Cas’s almost final words echoed in his mind.

_“I never wanted you to find out because I’m not worthy of being allowed to love you…”_

Cas… couldn’t really think that, could he? That _he_ was the one not worthy of Dean, rather than the other way around?

 _Nah. Just a dream,_ Dean reminded himself.

Groggily, he pushed up from the mattress, and began to shuffle his way toward the door. Ten minutes of searing heat and the bunker’s amazing water pressure would burn away his torturously wonderful dream, Dean decided. Then coffee.

As he padded barefoot past the small desk in his room, something glinted slightly in the lamplight. Something that pulled at the edge of his mind as just being… off. Different. New.

Sat on top of a pile of random papers, questionable magazines, and some pieces of unbound spellbook he needed to take back to the library, there sat a pair of armored gloves.

Leather and chainmail.

 _“I wouldn’t mind if these ended up in my room,”_ Dean recalled.

He shook, and for a moment his mind went blank, before it slowly rebooted.

It was real.

His shower somehow only took half the time he’d usually spend, and after hastily brushing his teeth, he didn’t even bother to run straight for the coffee pot. Instead, Dean headed off to the library.

At one of the tables, head on top of a thick Enochian ledger, his hands under his cheek, was Cas.

The mere fact that he was sleeping just cemented to Dean than Gabriel had done _something_ ; Cas didn’t sleep, even as powered down as he was.

Nervously, Dean walked up to the edge of the table.

After his own yelling at Gabriel about sleeping people and consent issues, Dean had to hope that either Castiel’s last words to him in the pocket dimension counted as a yes, or that the angel would see fit to forgive him when he woke.

Heart in his mouth, Dean leaned down and slowly kissed his prince awake.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you had fun reading! I love to write that crazy archangel into my Destiel now and again ;)
> 
> Did you enjoy the fic? I had so many ideas for different fairytales to use, picking one was hard.
> 
> Let me know if you had a favorite of the three, because I can feel more of this type of thing emerging in the future!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Comments are love!
> 
> You can [find me here on tumblr.](https://malmuses.tumblr.com/) Please do come say hi!
> 
> \- Mal <3


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